The Gatehouse Mystery

gentle voice, "It'll be our secret. A secret, Bobby. Nobody will know about it but you and me and Brian and Mart and Honey and Jim. A real secret."
    Instantly the little boy was all smiles. "A real see-crud, Trixie?"
    "That's right," Mart said. "Wild horses couldn't drag it out of me. Where did you take the pretty stone after you found it, Bobby?"
    "To the sandpile," he said promptly. "The one Jim made for me next to the shower."
    "That'll teach you," Mart said in an aside to Jim. "Never be kind to this age group." He grinned, cuddling Bobby closer to him. "And after the sandpile, Little King? Mud pies?"
    "Oh, no," Bobby said airily. "I put it in my pocket." He turned one pocket of his playsuit inside out, displaying a large hole. "But it wented out."
    "Where?" Trixie asked dismally. "While you were catching frogs in the pond?"
    He nodded his head up and down, and Trixie held her breath. "But I founded it again with my strainer," he told her. "And then I put it in this pocket, so it wouldn't get losted. And then I wented up to see Dickie. Mommy said I could," he added defensively. "You were down in the garden."
    "Never mind where Trixie was," Brian said, smiling down at his little brother. "We're only interested in where you were all day. Did you show Dick the pretty stone?"
    "No," Bobby admitted sadly. "I forgot."
    "Did you put it somewhere in my room," Honey asked, "while you helped Jim and me move our things?"
    "I don't think so," Bobby said, frowning. "I put it in Jim's camera, oncet, but I tooked it out again."
    "Inside my tennis racket case, maybe?" Jim asked. "In the pocket where I keep the balls I said you could have?"
    "I don't think so," Bobby said again. "I think I put it in a box. A sort of boxlike thing. But maybe I put it in my teddy bear. He's got a big hole in his head."
    "We've all got holes in our heads," Mart said sorrowfully. "Which one of us masterminds dropped it here in the grass?"
    "I dropped it lots of times," Bobby informed him cheerfully. "But it's so shiny, I always founded it again."
    "I tell you what," Mart said. "I'll give you a shiny, bright, glittery-like dime if you find it. Why don't you go get your teddy bear and see if it's in his head?"
    "Okeydokey," Bobby said and scampered off.
    The minute he was out of earshot, they all spoke at once.
    "It's somewhere in my room," Honey said.
    "I'll bet it's in my fisting tackle," Jim said.
    "It's in the bottom of the pond," Trixie said.
    "I'm going to sift the sandpile with a strainer," Brian said.
    "The place to look," Mart said, "is in the mud under his shower."
    "What did you say?" they all asked each other.
    Brian held up his hand. "Let's not do that all over again. This Tower of Babel business will get us nowhere. Let's all go and look wherever we think it might be. And report at the boathouse in an hour."
    "It just might be in his teddy bear," Honey said. "Not a prayer," Trixie told her. "If we'd found a four-leaf clover, yes. But with only crabgrass on our side, no." She started off for the little pond below the rock garden. "If I don't show up in an hour, you'll know I met the same fate as 'Clementine.' "
    "Well see that you get a decent burial," Mart called after her.
    "Don't bother," Trixie retorted. "If I don't find that diamond, I'll dig my own grave."
    An hour later, they all met at the rustic boathouse by the lake. "Don't let's say anything," Trixie said. "I can tell from the expression on your faces that you didn't find it."
    "You look so gay," Mart said, "I'm sure you found it."
    "I did," Trixie said. "But when I'd dug my way clear through to China, I found that a little boy there had found it in a rice field. He needed it more than I did, so I let him keep it."
    "That was real generous of you," Jim said. "I hope he brings you rice cakes in jail."
    "I don't know how you can joke about it," Honey said. "I searched every inch of my room. I mean Jim's room. Oh, what do I mean?"
    "It doesn't matter," Trixie said sourly. "If I had a grappling iron, I'd search the bottom of the lake, just for the fun of it."
    "I, at least," Mart put in, "had sense enough to check up on the teddy bear angle. No soap."
    "If you had any sense," Trixie said, "you'd check up on the Dick angle. That guy probably picked Bobby's pocket."
    "Oh, come, come," Jim said. "Let's not go off on tangents. Dick isn't really a bad guy, Trixie. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean he's a dip."
    "A what?" Trixie demanded. "Did you say a dip? 'Drip' is the